"I took the form of a 45-year-old white man for a reason. I can only fail up"--with a portrait of Og.

"Any time I had a problem, I threw a Molotov cocktail, and boom, I had a different problem"--Dayna with the bomb she pulled from hammerspace. She and Jason would get on like, so to speak, a house on fire.

Drive-By: Which Spelling? Yay, The Good Place is back tonight! Since I don't have a TV, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to watch.

If, say, hypothetically a person were writing a Good Place/B7 crossover, should it be called Mr. Roj's Neighborhood or Neighbourhood? And is a Major Canon Death warning necessary in a fic where *everybody* is ex officio dead? "Canon Levels of Deadness"?

Drive-By: GoodTide I'm much too lazy to actually write the fic, but more on the subject of Yuletide in the Good Place:

1. Tahani, those dentists fool nobody.

2. Despite the ban on RD(ead)PF, Eleanor/Tahani is the most popular pairing this year.

3. Vicky mods _coal.

4. The Bad Place now has a sanction to replace the Penis Flattener: betaing for Jason.

5. It is impossible to distinguish Eleanor's ATG Star Wars fics from her ATG SGA fics from her ATG Sentinel fics, and her ridiculous MarySue swoops in in the last chapter and saves everybody's ass. Then lots of threesomes.

Drive-By: No Doxx I was just playing Cupcake 2048 and it occurred to me that the Least Fun Ever Had By a Human would be Chidi doing Yuletide. And he would always find a typo right after the absolute last posting deadline.

Which, in turn led me to think that, although we're not supposed to link up fannish and RL identities...it must have been Michael who dreamed up Yuletide.

Drive-By: Neologism I was wondering if there's a term for when you get rid of a pair of pants because you can put them on or take them off without opening the button and zipper. I settled on "Lautrec". But then that made me think of LauTrek: Belle Epoque, where they go to interstellar brothels and make posters. Boldly going where many, many men have gone before.

Drive-By: Branrot I'm watching S2 of True Detective, which is pretentious and awful and yet somehow compelling. I mean, it's so shameless that I assumed the reason that Colin Farrell's character and Rachel McAdams' characters were so awkward with each other that they were former spouses.

Anyway, the caption refers to a unit of measurement. A "milli-Helen" has been defined as "a face that launches one ship," and a Full Branrot is a fake moustache that is as awful as the thing that perches on Kenneth Branagh's face in Murder on the Orient Express, so I'm not sure whether non-flashback-Farrell is...35%? 40%?

Drive-By: Wouldn't It Be Loverly? I don't actually *believe* that the tax bill, which is getting passed despite being not merely unread but unreadable, actually has a hand-written addendum "And by the way, Trump and the eleven people next after him in the succession will be removed from office, hustled into black helicopters, and dumped naked on an uninhabited atoll immediately upon enactment." And that Trump would sign it while crowing about the greatest legislative victory ever.

Drive-by: Chess I just Netflixed a concert version of Chess, a show that has some current resonance because it's not just about Russian-American tensions, but includes a horrible American named Trump(er).

If the love triangle was a woman and two men rather than a man and two women, they could have called it Capablanca.

Local relief groups, progressive organizations, unions, and immigrant rights groups are already mobilizing grassroots relief efforts. Here is a list of groups and efforts you can plug into to help:

The Texas Workers Relief Fund. A union-relief effort by the Texas AFL-CIO, donations are tax-deductible. The state fed has been closely coordinating with the Houston and Corpus-area central labor councils to provide material aid.

RNRN Disaster Relief Fund. Our ally the National Nurses United organizes medical relief for major disasters through this fund.

Texas DSA. DSA chapters (also allies) have been organizing both volunteers and those in need at a grassroots level. Sign up here to offer help (or ask for it) or donate directly to Houston DSA.

Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery Group Fund. If you want to donate directly for relief in the Coastal Bend towns hit directly by the hurricane.

Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund. Houston's mayor has set up this fund to assist with victims of Houston's ongoing and increasingly dangerous flooding. Donations are tax-deductible.

The extreme enforcement policies of SB4 and ICE have put immigrant workers in increased harm's way through the crisis. Immigrant and refugee groups such as RAICES in San Antonio are moving to get aid directly to immigrant families. Jumping in now is just the beginning.

DSA Harvey Relief Link Obviously not everybody here is a DSA member (...for those who are, hi, comrades!) but here's a link to the Houston DSA chapter's fundraiser, which includes needs of undocumented people:

One thing I learned from Sandy recovery is that setting up an Amazon wishlist is not the most productive way to help. People were paying $50 plus delivery charges to send a blanket. We damn sure needed blankets, but we could have helped a local business recover by paying $7 for blankets from the store.

Once the roads open and deliveries can be made, some of the best things you can send are batteries (lightweight!--but they have to be shipped by road, you can't air mail them), sanitary supplies like tampons, and diapers. Flashlights, lanterns (Brooklyn Lanterns are GREAT), headbands with LED lights, and phone chargers are also really useful. Space blankets! I love space blankets! Socks and underwear are also really useful until a full-scale clothing distribution can kick in.

MoveOn Ready to Resist Call Just got off the Ready to Resist Call. They're suggesting a new tactic: go to your Facebook, look for "Friends In" in Alaska, Maine, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Ohio. If you *have* any FB friends in those states (and they're not, y'know, your Uncle Beauregard who gives everybody an NRA membership for Keep-the-Christ-in-Christmas) then ask them to tell their Senators to vote against the AHCA. The AHCA is going to be rushed in without hearings or indeed any of the normal procedures for considering a bill. So even if the Senator is a moss-backed conservative, he or she might want to get a chance to read and consider the bill before being rushed into voting for it.